Visual Studio may gain AI smarts around available code

The experimental technology could assist in code analysis, but there’s no timeline for its release.

Credit: IDG

Microsoft is eying artificial intelligence capabilities to give its Visual Studio IDE a greater grasp of the available code for a project.

Currently in an experimental phase, Visual Studio's use of AI may enable code analysis, tapping sources ranging from the developer’s code repo to project code to perhaps even GitHub repos under a developer’s jurisdiction. Microsoft is pondering just how many code sources should be considered.

The company has no timetable for when AI might appear in the Visual Studio IDE.

Microsoft is also considering ways to improve Visual Studio's refactoring, which is about modifying code to make it easier to maintain and extend. Other areas of exploration include supporting developers on any platform, team development, and tuning the IDE for devops.